Well-worn expression?

Reader question:

Please explain this sentence, particularly “well worn”: “As hard as a nail” is a well worn expression.

My comments:

Or “as hard as nails”, which is the more often used phrase.

It means, of course, that someone is a tough nut to crack. Like nails, they’re tough, tenacious, resilient, harsh, unyielding.

“Well worn” (or well-worn) means this is an old expression that’s been around for a long time. I feel that “as hard as nails” is the kind of expression Charles Dickens would use. It is an expression the great English writer did use, in fact, as I find the following quote from UltimateLexicon.com:

“In the dark shadow beside him, with the self-possession of a grave-digger, stood the grisly old woman, as hard as nails; as silent as the charge of Buckingham Palace.”

Anyways, “as hard as nails” is an old expression. In our example, this expression is described as well-worn. That way, it is likened to, say, a pair of old shoes.

In the case of shoes, well-worn means, literally, that the shoes have been worn for a long time. We know that old shoes are comfortable, unlike new shoes. New shoes need a little break in, as they say. You need to try new shoes on for some time to allow them to adjust to the particular shape of your feet. Initially, before the shoes are broken in, they may cause blisters, let alone causing other forms of minor discomfort.

From this derives the idea that things that are well-worn are more comfortable as they’re tried, tested and reliable.

Shoes can be too well-worn, of course. If the shoes are too well-worn, they no longer give comfort. Try a pair of old shoes that are losing parts of their soles, for example, and see how they feel.

Likewise, “as hard as nails” can be overused. Then, it feels tired, stale and lifeless.

So, that’s probably the hidden part of the message in our example sentence (As hard as a nail is a well-worn expression).

To wit, it is a well-used expression, but don’t overuse it.

All right, let’s read a few examples of “as hard as nails” in recent media:

1. It’s election season. We’re hearing that the United States has an “immigration crisis.” The phrase is so well-worn that even some Democrats and liberals use it.

Well, the United States does have an immigration crisis. But it’s not what you think.

Immigration is dangerously low. And we need much more of it.

Let’s look at the numbers. The world has very few migrants, and of those, fewer still come to the United States Only 3.6% of the world’s population are migrants – and of those, only about 18% are in the United States. Immigration to the United States has indeed grown since 1990, and is now the primary source of population growth – but even so, only about 14% of the population is foreign-born.

So why do we keep hearing that there’s an immigration crisis? That’s politics, not data. Politicians, pundits, and malicious actors whip up anti-immigrant feelings, peddling stories of immigrants competing with native-born citizens for jobs, using social services, and changing cultures and identities. It’s true that immigration may carry short-term costs – and these costs should be more equitably shared. But still, any costs are more than paid for in the long term, as immigrants enrich America with their labor supply, tax revenue, consumer demand, innovation, and entrepreneurship.

Despite the political rhetoric, there is no crisis of high immigration. Instead, we have a crisis of low immigration.

Our biggest population challenge is not growth (whether birth or immigration), but aging. Americans are generally living longer than ever before and having fewer kids than ever before (below the population replacement level of 2.1 children). The average American is getting older, and our senior citizen population is projected to grow nearly 50% by 2050. Older Americans are depending on a future filled with young Americans – who are not being born.

Uneven aging threatens our society. Younger workers will struggle to support a disproportionate number of older people. This scenario could disrupt labor markets, threaten retirement systems, inflate healthcare costs, and slow economic growth. We can see this already in Japan and South Korea, which are rapidly aging. These countries’ low immigration rates have been fiscally unsustainable, and they are now relaxing some immigration restrictions.

Some might ask: Can’t employers fill labor shortages with technology instead of immigrants? Yes, sometimes – but technology, automation, and AI cannot do many jobs. Think of service professionals doing in-person work, or work requiring advanced education, or healthcare workers for aging populations (for which there is a labor shortage). To design and implement these technologies, we will need people trained in these fields – who are often immigrants! Unlike human workers, technology will not increase tax bases and will not solve declining fertility and depopulation.

- Think Immigration: Immigration Is the Solution, Not the Problem, by Ava Morgenstern, AILA.org, August 29, 2024.

2. The World War II movie is well-worn. According to a brisk Google search, people have dedicated nearly 5,000 movies to different points of view and experiences from the conflict. We’ve seen points of view from soldiers, nurses, civilians, Nazis, Russians, and, now, a former model turned photographer. In Lee, Kate Winslet’s passion project about Lee Miller, the former Vogue and Vanity Fair model, we get a new point of view on the war, one filled with nuance from those who experienced it in the shadows.

Winslet is fantastic in Lee, so good that her performance netted her a Golden Globe nod. The film stars Winslet as Miller, an American photographer and former fashion model who became an acclaimed war correspondent for Vogue magazine during World War II. Andy Samberg co-stars as David Scherman, Miller’s best friend and photographic counterpart. The cast also features notable names like Marion Cotillard, Andrea Riseborough, Noémie Merlant, Josh O’Connor, and Alexander Skarsgard, many of whom joined as favors to Winslet to ensure the movie got made after continual setbacks in the studio system.

Throughout the plot of Lee, we see a woman break through multiple barriers, doing her best to navigate a world evolving in real time as war rages across Europe. Miller’s work during the war resulted in some of the 20th century’s most indelible images, including an iconic photo of herself in Hitler’s bathtub. An emotionally exhausted Miller, with mud fresh on her boots from seeing scores of bodies in the Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau, went into Hitler’s apartment, got naked in his tub, and snapped a photo of herself as a juxtaposition of the brutal realities of the war that changed the world. The film delves into her profound understanding and empathy for women and the voiceless victims of war, showcasing the fragility and ferocity of the human experience.

The cinematography of Lee is brutalist, capturing the horrors of war alongside the mundane realities of daily life in a war zone. First time director Ellen Kuras has done an excellent job, and her attention to the minute and the emotional makes her a director to watch. Lee avoids the hubris of the cowboy American soldier squashing Nazis while the world celebrates. Instead, it’s quieter and more distant in its reflection on how we view tragedy.

Winslet’s performance is central to humanizing Miller, a woman who didn’t ride the coattails of the war after it ended. Her extraordinary life came to light only after her son Antony discovered her photographs following her death from lung cancer in 1997. Miller’s story, intertwined with surrealist icons like Picasso, Dalí, and Cocteau, could have filled an entire series. If anything, the movie doesn’t show enough of her fascinating life before the bombs began to drop, though what it does show is compelling.

Lee is an activation that the past does matter, and events of history do have weight, even if they’re not rooted in the present. It’s a portrait of a woman who crossed boundaries, pushing through both societal and personal limits. The film’s understated tone eschews the macho bravado often seen in the genre, instead leaning into quiet moments that shatter traditional notions of bravery, even if it’s wearing a bra under a pair of fatigues.

While Lee might not fully capture the depth of Miller’s life, it is a humble, thoughtful take on a war movie that prioritizes humanity over spectacle. Kuras and Winslet have created a film that lingers, reminding us that history’s quiet moments and unseen contributors are as significant as the battles themselves.

- ‘Lee’: Kate Winslet’s Quietly Feminist WW2 Passion Project, BookAndFilmGlobe.com, January 23, 2025.

3. It’ll be debated for some time whether Donald Trump‘s confrontation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was spontaneous or a pre-planned ambush, but by the end of the 15-minute exchange Friday, Trump relished how it would all play: “This is going to be great television.”

The idea that Trump has created a reality TV presidency is well-worn, but the reaction to the shout-fest, that it signals a breakdown in U.S.-Ukrainian relations and perhaps Western alliances, is hardly trivial.

“Wow, just wow,” said CNN’s Dana Bash, after the network finished running video of the exchange, before going to the network’s chief White House correspondents and then foreign correspondents to talk about the implications.

Such reactions continued throughout the day as the story dominated cable news and social media.

Trump was supposed to meet with Zelensky today to put the finishing touches on a U.S. mineral rights deal with Ukraine, something that would include some security guarantees for the beleaguered country as the Trump administration holds talks with Russia on settling the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Trump and Zelensky were to appear together at a joint afternoon press conference.

All went well for the initial part of the meeting, as members of the White House press pool, shuffled into the Oval Office, watched. As Zelensky tried to make the case that Vladimir Putin could not be trusted with a ceasefire deal, Vice President JD Vance chimed in, saying it was “disrespectful” for him to “come into the Oval Office and try and litigate this in front of the American media.”

As Zelensky warned of the impact of giving in to Putin, telling Trump and Vance that “you will feel it in the future,” the president got irate. “Don’t tell us how we’re going to feel. We’re trying to solve a problem. Don’t tell us how we are going to feel.”

It went downhill from there, as Trump didn’t just explode at the Ukrainian leader but went off on a list of past grievances. At one point, he went on about Adam Schiff and Hillary Clinton and Hunter Biden’s “laptop from hell” as he made the case that Putin, who invaded Ukraine, was the real victim who “went through a hell of a lot with me.”

- “This Is Going To Be Great Television”: Trump Creates Yet Another Shocking Oval Office Moment, But This Time The Stakes Could Not Be Higher, Deadline.com, February 28, 2025.

本文仅代表作者本人观点，与本网立场无关。欢迎大家讨论学术问题，尊重他人，禁止人身攻击和发布一切违反国家现行法律法规的内容。

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.

（作者：张欣）